“It’s not as if we didn’t see some of this coming,” said Barack Obama, a note of bleak humour in his voice. “I will admit it’s worse than even I expected, but I did warn y’all!”
The crowd at a sports arena in Norfolk, Virginia, half-laughed and half-groaned. “I did,” Obama added. “You can run the tape.”
Now Obama is back on the campaign trail, for Democrats running for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. It gives him a platform to deliver an alternative State of the Union address. And the gloves are off.
To hear the expectant buzz of the 7,000-plus crowd in Norfolk as candidate Abigail Spanberger promised that Obama’s entrance was just moments away was to be reminded that Democrats did once have a president who could match Trump’s superstar charisma.
Do elder statesmen like Obama bother mentoring or training their “replacements”? Seems like we would have more Obama’s in the pipeline if that was the case.
You know how Bernie has spent like 2-3 decades saying “it’s not about me, it’s about a movement”?
Obama fundamentally disagrees…
Not that I have a quote of him explicitly saying that, he never would say it on record.
But as a two term president he could have named a progressive chair to the DNC that entire 8 year period. The immediate benefit of that being 2016 would have been a fair primary…
So while some do, I would be shocked to find out Obama suddenly started to care about what happened after him, the day he left office.
Obama was extremely overrated.
It sucks how the right gets ‘their guy’ and we’re stuck with establishment crap. spits
It’s been shit so long people don’t understand what their literal ancestors had.
Like, Gen Z was born when Clinton was in office, Alpha when Obama was.
They don’t even really remember it because they were kids, just the memory that people said he was either progressive or a commie muslim.
But right now we’re not stuck with shit.
The DNC is throwing Biden/Kamal’s whole war hest back to state parties for use in midterms, and that will generate more candidates in primaries because more generals are winnable.
And competitive primaries help Dem turnout in the general, coupled with republicans shitting the bed and we’re likely to see a progressive, not just blue, wave in midterms. Then another along with a progressive presidential.
It doesn’t happen often, not in most of our lifetimes really, but now we actually do need to build party unity.
Billionaires and their remaining puppets are going to put a lot of time and money into depressing interest until after primaries.
sadly its mostly PELOSi, or schumer who do the replacement for DNC. i dont think former presidents can do it, since they dont have political power anymore. all they can do is endorse and promote them.
Just what we need, more people drone striking weddings schools and hospitals. I think Putin and netanyahu are doing a fine job carrying on Obama’s legacy.
And this is honestly one of the biggest struggles I’ve always had with him. I genuinely want to like him, but I can’t forget the 26,000+ bombs dropped in seven countries in just 2016 alone. Effing hell.
Just goes to prove of you’re charismatic enough it doesn’t matter how you act.
The only difference here is Obama did that to other countries while Trump does it to everybody
Not at all justifying what Obama did, and I think for the progressive party to win, we need truly progressive candidates.
feel like alot of people are falling for right wing propaganda against obama , thats where the hate is coming from. no word on what trump is doing at all? why is that, he isnt black thats why. even if it is criticism, its extremely mild.
Obama killed 12,000 civilians and bombed a doctors without borders hospital. That’s not propaganda it’s verifiable fact.
This isn’t a thread about trump. Are you saying nobody can criticize any president without giving trump a shout-out?
Oh fuck you
I was only a kid when Obama was in office, honestly one of my better memories as a kid was Michelle Obama’s “worldwide day of play” on Nickelodeon and the increased “Green” education.
I don’t know a lot of his international affairs but maybe that’s something I’ll read about. However from first glance’s it does look like he was more destructive overseas than I personally prefer. I don’t think it’s “right wing” propaganda at all to think critically about who we idolize as our progressive candidate, even more so considering current affairs.
Those have increased since he left office. You think he’s out there pushing those buttons or something?
No, he just kept approving them.
They increased because Obama legalized and normalized the worst excesses of the Bush admin and gave those powers to subsequent presidencies. But sure let’s stand up more for the guy who said “we need to look forward, not backward” when it came to prosecuting the Bush admin for war crimes, and then wondering why no one would stop Trump from criming all his presidency when we couldn’t even lift a finger for war crimes.
I’m not saying Obama is a villain, but he fucked up in some very major ways on those issues.
If you kick me in the balls 40 times I’m not going to celebrate you even if the next guy kicks me in the balls 50 times. Obama was a piece of shit and it’s way past time to look past the charisma and accept that.
Username checks out…?